Table of contents
Google did two things at once: folded Gemini into standard Workspace licences and raised prices. The community reaction split exactly as you would expect, and both halves have a point.
What is included now
- Gemini in Gmail and Docs: drafts, summaries, rewriting.
- Gemini in Meet: notes and summaries.
- The Gemini app with enterprise-grade data protection.
- NotebookLM and Gems, depending on plan and rollout wave.
The exact set and the usage limits vary by plan and change often: Business Starter gets less than Business Standard, Enterprise gets more. Do not trust articles, including this one: check your own Admin console and Google’s plan comparison. Current plan contents are on our licensing page.
Why the price went up
Until January 2025 Gemini was a separate add-on; the Gemini Business add-on had a US list price of about 20 USD per user per month. In January 2025 Google announced that Gemini is included in Business and Enterprise plans, and the base licence price rose at the same time by a much smaller amount. If you were already paying for the add-on, you now pay less. If you never used Gemini, you pay a little more for something you did not ask for. That arithmetic is the entire controversy. Using it is not the same as saving money, though: a licence pays for itself only if the time it saves is real, which is what the pilot below measures.
Where your data goes
Four different things get mixed up here. Keep them apart.
- Model training. Google states that your Workspace content and Gemini prompts are not used to train its generative AI models without your permission. This is the contractual part.
- Access control. Gemini only sees what the signed-in user can already open. It does not bypass Drive permissions, and it does not fix them either.
- Retention. Vault covers the Gemini app’s conversation history in supported editions. Gemini output inside a Gmail message or a Doc is simply part of that item and follows that service’s rules. Not every AI interaction is retained the same way: check Vault’s supported services for your plan.
- Storage location. Data regions apply only to the services and data types on Google’s “Data covered by data regions” list. “Within your organisation” describes who can access the data, not where it is physically stored.
None of which solves the internal question: if an employee pastes a confidential client contract into a prompt, that is your policy problem, not Google’s. Write down which data categories may go into Gemini (public, internal, client-confidential, personal data) and require a human check on anything that leaves the company.
How to turn it off
There is no single switch. In the Admin console, under Generative AI, there are separate controls:
- Gemini app: the standalone app, on or off by organisational unit or group.
- Gemini in Workspace apps: the features inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Meet and the rest. In Gmail this also depends on the smart features and personalisation setting.
- NotebookLM: its own on/off control.
Turning off the Gemini app does not remove Gemini from Gmail or Docs, and the other way round. Decide per organisational unit or group, apply the change, then sign in as a test user in that unit and confirm what actually appears. Two field notes: disabling does not lower the price, and new features can arrive switched on, because new Gemini surfaces come with their own defaults. Recheck after Workspace release announcements, or at least quarterly.
The practical move
Skip the emotional decision in both directions. Pick one team, enable it for a month with a short list of allowed tasks (summarising long threads, first drafts of routine emails, meeting notes, Sheets formulas), then measure who used it and whether the output was good enough to keep without heavy correction. In our experience usage concentrates in a few roles. That answer tells you which plan to pay for, and for whom.
Have Gemini but no rules or clear use cases? We check what your edition includes, agree the controls, run a small pilot and train the people who will use it. Book a free 30-minute audit or call +371 22 30 50 90.
